


So, this is normal for us now?

by TooManyChoices



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Epiphanies, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-02-04 20:53:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1792867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooManyChoices/pseuds/TooManyChoices
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Sherlock have been sharing a flat, and a life for some time. This is a story of how the glacially slow movement of their relationship makes another agonising crawl forward another inch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So, this is normal for us now?

_I can’t get enough of the smooth skin under my hand and I revel in the way my fingertips follow the curve of defined muscles in the arms. Hair tickles my nose as I bury my head into the lithe neck and I snuffle a bit in hedonistic pleasure. I manage to slot my knee more snuggly between firm thighs and bask in the warmth. She opens she mouth in a sigh and her voice sends shivers down my spine as she murmurs my name……._

“John?....”

_Well that’s not right?!? The sultry baritone with its soft yet questioning tone jars with my sleeping image of rounded curves and feminine scents. The query repeats, stirring me to wakefulness…._

 “John….?”

_Well, this is awkward…._

I’ve managed to wrap myself rather thoroughly around my flatmate’s lean form. My head is burrowed against his lean neck and I have both arms wrapped around his lithe torso, one hand spread, fingers wide, against the small of his back. My knee and upper thigh is slotted between his long legs and our feet are carelessly tangled together under the warm covers.

People perceive Sherlock as aloof, however rather than being alarmed at this blatant invasion of his personal space, the (arguably) greatest detective in modern Britain…..is relaxed and laughing softly.

I struggle ineffectually, trying to reinstate some modicum of personal space which only serves to make him laugh harder. He’s helping the situation….not the slightest bit.

Sherlock has, and those that know him well are aware of this, no respect for personal space. This includes that of those around him as well as his own. Watch him for a few hours and it becomes quickly apparent that he looms, he invades, he confines and he misappropriates. He stands too close and this, together with his unwavering stare un-nerves people. It’s one of the reasons many are uncomfortable around him. He virtually exudes an air of ‘too close’.

Anyone sharing a flat with Sherlock needs to come to terms with this, and I have. The choice, without the conversation actually using these words, was basically ‘put up…or get out’. So once I adapted to the constant crowding, touching and requests to retrieve items from pockets located too close to what modern parents would term ‘private places’, he and I settled into a comfortable, albeit strange, co-habitation the finer details of which, it is tacitly understood “don’t get mentioned outside the flat”.

These details regularly include, in no particular order:

  * Stealing each other’s food, often including appropriation of the eating utensils in the other person’s hand at the time.
  * Long rambling conversations (more often deductions), one of us in the shower (usually me), the other perched on the closed toilet lid (usually him).
  * Tucked up together under a duvet on the sofa - Watching TV, accompanied by hot chocolate and sometimes Jaffa Cakes
  * Various wound triage on areas of the body not usually exposed to flatmates
  * Tears, and laughter, and sickness, and fear, and pain, and, exhilaration, and despair, and joy, and all the other emotions you share away from prying eyes.
  * Bed sharing and ‘accidental bodily contact’’: Whilst away on cases, whilst trapped in building wreckage, while hiding under bridges and in alleys and occurring with disturbingly increasing frequency, at home in 221B.



This is where we find ourselves now. Tucked up in Sherlock’s voluminous bed wrapped in expensive sheets. My sleep addled brain searches for the latest reason for us to be sharing a bed and comes up, helpfully, with possible concussion (his) and exhaustion (mine). I rationalise that these are two perfectly valid reasons for grown men to be sharing a bed and find myself as unconvinced as the last three excuses have been:

  * Too hung-over to climb the stairs (me)
  * Suffering a nasty cold and needing regular delivery of fluids (him)
  * Concluding that the only way to save ourselves when the heating had broken down was to share body heat (both)



Nevertheless, this is the first time that I’ve awoken to find myself strewn across my flatmate in much the same way he scatters belongings around the flat. The words that spring to mind are reckless…and haphazard. Usually I wake somewhat confined to what I’m uncomfortably beginning to refer to, at least privately, as ‘my side’.

I sigh and give up the struggle, both mentally and physically. Sherlock is gaining more enjoyment from my discomfort at this unexpected situation than is in any way fair and I take some delight in depriving him of further pleasure by simply giving up and giving in. I relax my arms around him and settle back into the warm divot we’ve jointly made in the mattress.

This seems to surprise him at least slightly and, seemingly unwilling to have his fun spoiled, tries to bait me by shuffling impossibly even closer and nuzzling the hair at the top of my head. This is a blatant escalation and designed to push my buttons associated with 'appropriate behaviour in flatmates."

He's tried this before, pushing my buttons.....more than once. We're long past tentative conversations about sexuality and desire. That ship sailed years ago. Too many Winter nights holed up in Baker Street and more than enough Scotch has pried the lid off any secrets either of us had regarding our past, our proclivities and physical boundaries. Long story short......I'm both, he's neither (most of the time). On the odd occasion that an intense and restless 6-foot horny detective turns up in my doorway at 2am, I never turn him away. But it's understood that it's just one more weird aspect of the relationship we share. It's certainly not 'sentiment'.

Sherlock is a delight in bed. There's no other word for it. He approaches sex with the same attention to detail as every other aspect of his life (I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was). His touch is confident, expert and his technique is close to flawless. All of that makes him sound rigid and mechanical and yet, he's not. Once he makes the decision to satisfy the needs of his 'transport' he commits to it utterly. A switch flicks, and his attention shifts, almost tangibly, from the world around him to the person he has under his hands and the visceral reactions of his own body. It is......well, it's breathtaking. 

But this...this is different. This is cuddling and we don't do that.

Except that apparently now we do. What's more, I find I'm quite enjoying it now that I've given myself over to Sherlock's gentle ministrations. It's always this way, agreeing to a new status-quo and then Sherlock pushing at the edges, always testing the limits and extending in all directions. I shouldn't be surprised, and yet I am.

"Sherlock?"

"Mmmmm?"

"This is new....."

I feel his lips nuzzle my hair again, "Mmmmm."

"Is this a thing we do now?"

The smothered chuckle vibrates through me again and I feel him smile against my hair. "Apparently" I make out in the murmured reply.

"And you're OK with this?" I try a tentative brush of fingers up his warm back.

"Obviously." His long arms tighten around me and I feel his thighs press more firmly together, my leg still slotted between his. I feel cocooned, and safe.

The world shifts, or we do....or maybe it's just me. As Sherlock never tires of telling me, people are idiots and it's taken me too long to see what has been right in front of me all along.

We're not flatmates and suddenly I think perhaps we never were. The (obvious) pieces snap together in my head, disjointed fragments of a picture coming together to make a vibrant portrait of two lives that have become one. For the first time I see not only the past behind us but a future before us. One filled with lazy morning lie-ins, toast and jam, and perhaps a cottage in the country.

With a ferocity that startles me, recognition rises within me that I MUST have it, this future that I've glimpsed. I gasp at the overwhelming surge of possessiveness. This man, this place, this life. It's mine and I'm keeping it.

A low and animalistic growl rumbles up from somewhere deep within me. A sound I've never heard from my lips tumbles forth and together with a covetous clasping of arms around Sherlock I murmur, "Mine."

Sherlock shudders against me, my intonation and action together telling him all he needed to know. He continues to hold me tight but nudges my face up so he can look into my eyes.

He whispers as his lips dip toward mine "Always John....always yours."


End file.
